64 Comments

Reply I do not normally send out statements of support for individual Ministers under pressure in the press. If I want the Minister to continue in office I judge it usually weakens rather than strengthens them as the press tends to use it say their position is so weak they need such statements. If I want the Minister I go I usually make strong representations in private to the leadership who have the power to remove them from office.

It is inconceivable that Miller be allowed to continue in office with responsibility for press regulation. The Leveson recommendations also need to be rethought (and quite probably thrown out) in the light of a minister ready to use the threat of press regulation to advance her own interests.

Reply I voted against any political involvement in press regulation. The vote in favour was overwhelming, as all 3 main party leaders were in support of the proposals which were agreed in Mr Miliband’s office.

It’s about press regulation true – given the threat issued by her staff to the Telegraph reporter. Not much reading between the lines needed there to see politics in the raw. Have you listened to the tape?
She has to go both for the original offences and especially for the cover up and bullying in trying to deter those investigating.

You hound a target until they react – and it’s their reaction you splash in your paper.

That’s what’s happened here – it’s a standard newspaper technique.

Yes, I did listen to the tape and it appears the SPad did try to kill the story – but as I said above, you first wind them up and then you publish their reaction – and it’s the reaction that you’re hearing in the recording.

The bigger picture is this – the press don’t want to be regulated and they will attack and undermine anyone who appears to be in favour of Leveson.

It’s Mrs Miller’s (and her special advisors) job to deal with the press in a professional manner.
They are supposed to be a professional people – to say that the press ‘hounded’ her and then use that to explain her totally inappropriate reaction is wrong.
Can a policeman or doctor say that someone ‘hounded them’ and use that as an excuse for bad conduct ?.
Cameron should act now and show he expects his cabinet to uphold the same standards as everyone else.

Yes and with a regulated press the Labour MPs (inc an ex minister) who ended up in jail would have got away with it. She is under the spotlight because she is walking away with nearly a million quid from a property deal underwritten by the taxpayer. Put that in context against your own finances, remember Dave says we are all in this together.

Given that the press doesn’t like Miller’s press regulations you’d think she’d act in a way that would make it difficult to run a campaign against her. So far she’s claimed £90,000 in second home allowance on a home her parent’s lived, made £1 million profit by selling this house, refused to answer questions or provide documents for a parliamentary committee, was fines £45,000 (reduced to £5,800 on appeal), and gave a 32 second apology that wasn’t very convincing.

When all three party leader are in favour of something it is nearly always a complete disaster in the making.

They need to ring someone sensible in the private sector where 80% or voters actually work. They could have avoided the ERM, the EURO disaster, the banking crash, the EU treaties, the Lawson crash, the religious energy drivel, the Millenium dome, the 50% income tax, the AGW exaggerations, the gender neutral insurance and pensions nonsense, the pole tax even the misnamed but political disaster the “bedroom tax”.

The Tories would have won in 2010 having not ratted on cast iron and having not given Clegg equal TV billing.

I would make no charge – Cameron can email me any time for my guidance or he could just ask Norman Tebbit or JR if he prefers – it would save him a lot of hassle and help growth.

Comment on Reply–Dear John, Your “in the press” says a lot: it is far indeed from just “in the press”. Sometimes you do come up with a load of flannel and manifest what might best be called a Goody Two Shoes attitude. I speak as someone who would like you to be, and often wonders why you are not, Prime Minister. In the instant case going on about non existent Court cases is daft: Cameron and apparently you are mixing up expediency with what is right; he is clearly keeping her because she is female. Obviously MP’s should not be policing themselves. Watching them grovelling for every expense penny is disgusting.

I do not know why Dave is clinging on to her. She will never make it into his inner circle having been born in Wolverhampton, raised in South Wales, state educated and having never made it into Oxford either. At best like Coulson she acts as a conduit for him as to what the lower orders are thinking.

Firewall. If she goes, that leaves Cameron exposed. Whilst in office, she will continue to take the flak, so long as, Dave supports her.

Cameron will need all the friends he needs after the May elections, both this year and next. What did it for Lady Thatcher, was that she was in office so long, and made so many enemies, it was easy for the likes of Heseltine to move against her.

One wouldn’t mind so much were it not for the mediocrity of some of those lording it over us.

Clearly there is much sociopathy and lack of self-awareness. Especially among those prepared to commit troops to useless wars, ill equipped, underfunded, betrayed at home – how can they dare to show their faces in public ?

I’m staggered at how unworldly and naïve you seem to be.
How can insisting on some professional standards and basic public protection be an attack on the freedom of the press?
Why do you think the cabinet is backing Miller – because they’re all crooks? What about JR, is he in on it too?
Politicians know that this media attack is about getting rid of someone who poses a threat. Journalists will dig and dig until they find something they can use to undermine and discredit their target – and whilst there seems to be an element of truth in this coverage – the reason Miller has been targeted in the first place is Leveson.
And because public opinion is vital in a democracy (no matter how wrong-headed it may be) Politicians will eventually give way under the pressure – not because it’s true but because it’s expedient.
Public opinion has been manipulated by the media for decades – and yet you seem to be completely oblivious to it all.

Indeed and it is reported, just now, on the daily politics by Andrew Neil that Maria Miller even remortgaged the house where her parents lived and then claimed (and overcharged) the additional interest incurred (on the new increased debt) to tax payers. What was the new debt for (etc ed)? How did she get away with that

How many might did she actually stay at the property? Did it perhaps cost taxpayers £5000 a night perhaps – has she said how many nights she stayed?

She simply must go quietly now for the sake of the party, she is fairly hopeless at her job anyway as we say with her pathetic non apology.

As usual Cameron on one side and (it seems) 80% of Tory supporters against him and her it seems. Cameron totally out of touch with the grass root supporters’ views as usual.

Reply I don’t think it was anything like as expensive a night as you suggest.

In one taxpayer funded mortgage (no interest charged to her on the borrowings, because she is alleged to have claimed it all back as expenses) she appears to have got away with what is reported to be a £1,000,000 profit on this property deal.

This is a sum many of her constituents will find difficult to earn legally in a lifetime.

Unless she goes now John, I think you can safely say its one seat you can be certain your Party will lose at the next election.

Says all the public want to know about Mr Cameron as well, given that he has excused such behaviour.

Well it is not one law for everyone, there are rather special tax laws and HMRC regulations for EU bureaucrats and MPs, special pensions for some state sector workers, the speaker of the HoC, judges, special treatment of “expenses” for tax purposes. Member of the house of Lords can profit up to £300 a day (total tax free) just for popping in for a quick subsidised lunch.

From HMRC (but clearly does not apply to Lords or indeed much of MPs expenses).

“You can only get tax relief for business expenses you’ve paid”

Not if you are a Lord, MEP or MP thought.

HMRC allow employers to give their employees up to £10 (subsistance) for a 10 hour shift.

Meanwhile taxpayers subsidised Parliament’s bars and restaurants to the tune of £7m last year plus the creche and all the rest.

Reply MPs like anyone else have to tell the Revenue what they claimed and establish that the claims are necessarily incurred and qualify as tax free. When I used to claim private sector expenses for travel and overnight stays it was the same procedure, where I could get tax relief on the repayments as long as the expenses were necessary to do my job.

There is a whole section with HMRC of special arrangements for politicians they are not treated equally. For years they used to have special (very generous) expense rates for car mileage that were simply not permitted for mere private sector mortals it also included travel to and from work (which is also denied to mortals).

What about the lack of tax or NI on the daily allowances for Lords – this is more than many get paid in salary?

Reply MPs have the same mileage rate as everyone else for tax purposes. It does include travel to Westminster, because MPs have two places of work, the constituency and London.

MPs I agree do (now) have the same mileage rate but they used to have a much higher one than was permitted to the private ta paying sector by HMRC. People who have two or more different jobs and thus different places of work do get not tax relief on travel to any of them even though they are clearly a cost of the employment, nor do they usually get a free creche either.

From what I heard on LBC, she’s trying to negotiate a reduced CGT liability, by claiming it was her primary residence except for the period she claimed the “second home” allowance for it.

So she flipped it to maximise her expenses claim and flipped it back to minimise her CGT liability. I would like to hear from George Osborne as to whether or not he considers this morally repugnant behaviour or are MPs exempted from his morality code.

Reply It is not morally repugnant to pay CGT on your second home but not on your first home. That is presumably what Mrs Miller will do. The CGT definitions apply to everyone, MP and non MP, and Mrs Miller will have to conform to them. They are not the same definitions as for the pre 2010 MP expense scheme.

Lear had a great impact on me. It is not just a play , but a warning of the twists , turns , loyalties and disloyalties in life. How could Lear divided his kingdom and think that they would be just as loyal to him ? Can we liken it to Europe and if so: being in or out?
” A man can see how the world goes with no eyes”
We can see how it goes , but are not sure who is Cordelia and who is Regan. We can feel it but “Hark : in thine ear : change places;and, handy dandy, which is justice, which is the thief?”
And as far as passion about Scotland is concerned ” Love is not love,When it is mingled with regards that stand Aloof from the entire point.”

That is the problem, it is a quasi autonomous semi hereditary nepotistic group that looks after its own. For example;

Neil Kinnock has just got his son selected for the Labour ‘shoe in’ seat of Aberavon.

Poor old Aberavon, going to be represented by another bureaucrat with zero life experience of the problems he is supposed to be representing.

And, as he is married to the Danish Prime minister, one can’t help but wonder how much time he will spend in Aberavon, if he is going to have any sort of family life at all. After all, one can’t really imagine the Danish Prime minister spending much time there.

I see that Aberavon has an electorate of 51,000 surely there must be someone out of all those people who would make a better candidate rather than forcing this son of Kinnock on them. It`s time candidates were genuinely selected locally and not imposed from on high!

I happened to see the end of a speech by Ashton in the EU Parliament; she was promoting the agreed propaganda line that each of the EU member states was individually stronger and more powerful by being part of the EU – a line used by Clegg in his debate with Farage – and she said that this was certainly true “for the one I know best”.

Apparently this is the standard phraseology now used by Commissioners, rather than referring to “my country” or using its name.

And yet this doesn’t stop a number of Commissioners deciding that they will stop pretending to be impartial civil servants of the Union, humble functionaries, and revert to being politicians by contesting EU Parliament elections in the member states they each know best:

Seven of them are “hoping to win over voters”, but as six have been placed at the top of the candidate lists for their respective parties they shouldn’t need to do much of that to get themselves elected; the seventh is at the bottom of one of the party lists in the member state he knows best and presumably doesn’t want to get elected himself:

“Meanwhile, trade commissioner Karel De Gucht will also try to get an MEP post. But he is just the 12th and last candidate for the Verhofstadt-led Flemish liberal party in Belgium and will not actively campaign, leaving him free to continue his EU duties.”

There’s no doubt that the EU system of government has greatly expanded the career opportunities for politicians who are prepared to step outside the member states they know best and move around between posts in national politics and posts in the EU institutions; indeed somebody who previously would have been restricted to being a big fish in the tiny pool of Luxembourg politics can now range across the EU, from being a national MP to being an MEP, then getting on the EU Commission and at present in charge of justice, fundamental rights and citizenship for the whole of the EU, now being wangled back in as an MEP for the member state she knows best:

And of course in the case of Ashton she is in any case assured of a final home in the House of Lords in the member state she knows best, as the noble Baroness Ashton of Upholland, never-elected legislator-for-life.

Obviously there are two sides to the Maria Miller story ; the press are very annoyed and intent on chasing her . The one bit of evidence however that I considered “damning” was the interview with her father who agreed that the move to London was a “family” plan very much influenced by child care ; also the renting of her property in Basingstoke clearly underlined its “second” home status . I agree that the best thing is for her to resign ; whatever she does or is involved with in the future will be turned over microscopically for any detail of weakness .

Yes history has a lot to teach us.
Al Capone was locked up for tax evasion because they could not prove his gangster activities in court, this same approach could be used against much current day evil.
Its apparent to me the same organisations that routinely break immigration law, also routinely break employment law, also routinely tax evade, also routinely steal intellectual property, also routinely break the data protection laws, also routinely break the race discrimination laws, and so on.
It staggers me that some of the most obvious cases of this are prospering in modern day UK, I really do wonder how it’s allowed to happen. It’s probably effective political lobbying, building contacts at senior levels of society which frightens the agencies supposed to police these issues, the sophisticated way they pull the wool over the regulators eyes in multi-dimensional ways, and the sheer lack of resources put into policing and enforcing some of these rules.
There is a lot to be said for bringing the enforcement of all these issues together, into a police style organisation where the staff are genuinely protected from political meddling, and where a cross regulation view can be taken.
If it’s bad for me to break these rules, then it’s bad for a big organisation with sophisticated political contacts to be doing it too.

Mr. Redwood. Your quotation is very apposite for the mess Ms. Miller has got the Party into. Her actions in industry and commerce would be considered Gross Professional Misconduct and the penalties would be severe. You are one of the straightest men in politics and the Conservative Party and I hope that if asked your advice to Ms. Miller would be to consider her position. At a time when our policies are beginning to bear fruit, we really cannot allow the electorate to be diverted by serious misconduct in office by government ministers.

The King Lear quotes apply just as well to the current government’s attitude to Miller as they do to the EU. If I had mis-claimed that amount on expenses and failed to cooperate with my companies investigation I would have been fired.

Sorry about the link, but this is too good not to share. We all know how dangerous the EU is (apart from people who refuse to accept what is before their very eyes.) But I’d quite like to retain the freedom to criticise it, and not fall foul of any law that aims to prevent me.

I read in the Mail that the Speaker is trying to brush another scandal under the carpet; a group of Tories holding a gay “get together” (not ot put to fine a point on it) in a £2500 per night suite at the Light ApartHotel (a luxury apartment complex in Manchester).

And all at taxpayers expense as per usual.

Reply I note they did not publish names or evidence of public money involved. The Speaker is unlikely either to want to suppress a Conservative scandal or to be in a position to do so. The Speaker is of course neutral and attends no Conservative conferences.

About John Redwood

John Redwood won a free place at Kent College, Canterbury, He graduated from Magdalen College Oxford, has a DPhil and is a fellow of All Souls College. A businessman by background, he has been a director of NM Rothschild merchant bank and chairman of a quoted industrial PLC.